A usual technique to manufacture a layer of a material on a surface comprises dispersing this material in a solvent, depositing one or several drops of the liquid solution thus obtained on a target area which is desired to be coated with the material, and then removing the solvent, for example, by evaporation.
Such a manufacturing technique however reaches its limits when several adjacent areas are to be manufactured in different material as the distance between such areas decreases.
Thus, for example, the manufacturing of microelectronic components, such as for example transistors, requires depositing drops of liquid on a small area, while avoiding for this same liquid to flow out on adjacent areas, distant by a few micrometers only. Indeed, such adjacent areas have different functions implemented by different materials. An adjacent area thus should not receive a material which is not intended for it, since this would risk making the microelectronic component unusable.
Now, it is very difficult, and even impossible, to accurately control the way in which a drop deposited on a surface will spread. Indeed, the spreading of a drop depends on many factors, such as its composition, the material, and the geometry of the surface receiving it, environmental conditions (temperature, hygrometry . . . ), or the characteristics of its deposition (distance and speed of flight of the drop before its impact on the surface, diameter and controller of the nozzle used to deposit the drop . . . ). Further, this difficulty is all the stronger as the manufacturing implies drops comprising organic materials and/or solvents since, in such depositions, the drops have a strong tendency to spread.
Thus, the forming of an area by deposition of a liquid conventionally requires previously covering the adjacent areas with a masking resin, especially by means of a photolithography, carrying out the deposition and the evaporation of the liquid on the target area, and then of removing the masking resin with an adequate chemical bath. This operation is repeated for each area to be manufactured, thus multiplying manufacturing steps, and thus the total manufacturing cost.